WASHINGTON – Actor Matthew McConaughey, Uwalde’s son, Texas, took the podium in the White House briefing on Tuesday to talk about how he learned as a child to “honor the power and ability” of the gun. He then recounted the horror he felt when he lost 19 students in his hometown to a man with a rifle with a rifle so powerful that it disfigured many of their bodies beyond recognition.
Shortly after meeting with President Biden, Mr McConaughey reiterated the president’s call for more checks on arms buyers, new red flag laws and additional restrictions on the purchase of AR-15 rifles, such as those used to kill 19 children. two teachers at a primary school in Uwalde last month. He introduced himself as a voice for responsible gun owners and described, in graphic detail, the horrors of gun violence.
“The children were left not only dead but also hollow,” Mr McConaughey said as he described a meeting with the parents of the children killed in Uwalde, whose bodies had been “so mutilated that only DNA tests” or green Converse sneakers could be used. used to identify them.
“Yes, Uwalde will need advisers for a long time,” he said.
The shooting is one of the deadliest school attacks in history and one of more than 200 mass shootings reported in the United States so far this year. Just 10 days before the shooting in Uwalde, a gunman fatally shot dead 10 people at a Buffalo grocery store.
Mr McConaughey’s appearance in the White House came as a bipartisan group of senators tried to negotiate new legislation in response to gun violence. The senators involved in the negotiations expressed muted optimism that they could create some kind of legislation that could clear the evenly divided hall, although it will certainly not reach some measures, such as banning weapons of attack, for which he Mr. Biden called.
Mr McConaughey, who also met with Capitol Hill lawmakers on Tuesday, said he and his wife, Camilla, had gone to Uwalde the day after the shooting.
Updated
June 7, 2022, 6:23 p.m. ET
“You can feel the shock in the city,” he said. “You can feel the pain, the denial, the frustration, the anger, the guilt, the sadness. Losing lives, stopping dreams. “
He choked as he talked about meeting Alicia Ramirez’s parents, 10 who dreamed of going to art school in Paris, and how Alicia’s father, Ryan, had recently gotten a higher-paying job, promising it meant that he would spoil her by taking her to Sea World.
Mr McConaughey asked his wife to wear the Converse green high-top sneakers worn daily by 10-year-old Maite Rodriguez, who hoped to one day study to be a marine biologist and who painted a heart on her right finger to symbolize her love of nature. . “These are the same green Converse on her feet,” Mr McConaughey said, “which turned out to be the only clear evidence that could identify her after the shooting.”
He slapped the chair. “What will you say about this?”
He also described a meeting with a cosmetologist who had experience in applying funeral makeup to look at a coffin. “These bodies were very different,” Mr McConaughey said. “They needed a lot more than make-up to be representative. They needed extensive restoration. Why? Due to the extremely large exit wounds of the AR-15 rifle. ”
A few minutes later, Mr McConaughey turned to politics. He called on the media to reduce the sensational coverage of the mass shootings. He has repeatedly referred to the need for “responsible gun ownership”, including new provisions imposed by Democrats in response to the shooting.
“We need to increase the minimum age for buying an AR-15 rifle to 21,” he said. “We need a waiting period for these rifles. We need laws and consequences for those who abuse them. These are reasonable, practical, tactical rules. “
Mr McConaughey, the star of films such as Stunned and Confused and the Dallas Buyers Club and the True Detective TV series, was considering running for governor of Texas last year, but rejected it in November, calling the policy ” the path I choose not to take at this time. “
Emily Cochrane and Annie Carney contributed to the report.
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